


Better a Broken Heart

by minnabird



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-26
Updated: 2011-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:05:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Doomsday, the Doctor reflects on the consequences of his actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better a Broken Heart

Somewhere deep down, I knew it was coming. Losing her. I had a taste of it – just a taste – on the Game Station and it was almost more than I could bear. Brave, brave Rose, looking into the heart of the TARDIS to save me. She didn’t know what she was getting into. Didn’t know that she’d already saved me.

But we survived, Rose and me. For a time. We’re still alive, both of us, but we’re not The-Doctor-and-Rose-Tyler anymore. Just the Doctor and Rose Tyler, separate, the walls of the universe shut between us.

It was worth it. Worth losing her, just to have known her. Better a broken heart than no heart at all, and I’m not sure I’d have had one now, if I hadn’t met Rose.

And oh, the times we had. The wonders we shared. Our life together. She gave me a taste of that, too – normal life. Warm-hearted Rose Tyler, with her mechanic boyfriend and her strident mother, she let me into her life. She didn’t know how generous she was being; didn’t know that I hadn’t had a family like that since…too long. Too, too long.

She didn’t know I’d take her family apart, either. Oh, they were happy enough in the end, Mickey with his grandmother and Jackie with Pete, but there’s no denying I turned their lives upside-down too. They’re all together now, even Rose, and that’s what matters, I suppose. I took her family away, bit by bit, but I’ve fixed it now, just as I fixed the universe.

She’ll see, surely, that it’s for the best. If I had let her stay, taken her from them forever, would she have been the same Rose, or would I have been taking her heart away? No, I couldn’t do that to her. Not even if she wanted it. I kept her safe and I sent her back to her mum, just as I always promised I’d do.

It’s Christmas again, and Donna Noble is asking me to come have dinner with her family. I picture that Christmas I spent with the Tylers. Rose and her mum laughing together. It hurts, the memory, but I hope with everything in me that they’re having a wonderful Christmas right now.

I can’t accept Donna’s generous offer. She doesn’t realize what she is offering, just as Rose didn’t. This is what I do: I infiltrate people’s lives, I get into everything, and I tear them away from it.

Best not to risk it.


End file.
